In History of Dairy Farming in Virginia and Beyond, McClure combines decades of personal experience and a lifelong passion for Holstein cattle with extensive historical research to document how dairy breeding, milk marketing, artificial insemination (AI), embryo transplants, and technology transformed the industry from the late 1800s into the modern era leading up to the genomic years.

The richly illustrated 376-page volume includes more than 150 historical and breed photographs and follows dairy’s progression across Virginia, North America, and Europe — and the people whose ideas and determination shaped it.

McClure’s credentials run deep. A 1960 Virginia Tech graduate, he began his career as a dairy agent in Loudoun County during a time when northern Virginia still had nearly 300 dairy herds. Over the decades, he worked in Extension, owned and operated a dairy farm breeding Registered Holsteins, served as a fieldman and district manager with Virginia Animal Breeders and Select Sires, and later spent 20 years with ABS.

His career paralleled the explosive growth of AI, frozen semen technology, ET, computerized genetic evaluations, and the expanding global reach. It traces the history of the Holstein breed as McClure traveled to France, Germany, the Netherlands and made many trips to Canada.

The project itself grew out of a 2022 visit with legendary AI industry figure George Miller. After Miller’s passing, McClure inherited his boxes of historical records and memorabilia that filled a pickup truck bed. He also gained access to decades of archived records from the Virginia State Dairymen’s Association and Virginia Holstein Association.

Those materials spent two years in McClure’s basement as he sorted and pieced the story together. “That was my resource. Boxes and boxes and boxes,” McClure explained in a Farmshine interview.

The deeper he dug, the bigger the project became. “History is a funny thing — the more you dig, the deeper it gets,” he said. “You never finish with anything because there’s always another story.”

A central thread is the story of Virginia-bred Round Oak Rag Apple Elevation, the famed “Holstein Bull of the Century,” whose genetics spread worldwide and still appear in 99% of Holstein pedigrees today. McClure was there from the beginning.

“I went to Round Oak when Eve was still in the box stall with Elevation, and he was a day old,” McClure recalled. “He was part of my life forever.”

He later delivered Elevation semen as a fieldman for VABA and watched the bull become one of the most influential sires in dairy history, eventually producing an estimated 75,000 offspring worldwide as a 3-year-old bull and top-selling sire of the VABA stud.

McClure said the success of Elevation almost never happened. “He was 15 months old when Virginia Animal Breeders Association (VABA) bought him. His dam hadn’t milked very well, and his sire was an inbred bull nobody knew about,” McClure said. “But George believed that to be the cross, and he convinced Ronald Hope to do it.”

The book captures sweeping technological changes that reshaped dairy farming.

“When we went to frozen semen, all of a sudden the whole United States was fair game,” he recalled the shift from local breeding territories to nationwide competition among AI organizations, describing the transition from liquid to frozen semen and then computerized records, and eventually genomic selection.

“We could have never done that without the computers,” McClure said of the early IBM genetic evaluations. “Within a matter of five years, bull proofs included all the cattle in the country.”

Also told is the major story of the Dairy Science Department at Virginia Tech as it developed from the time it became a land grant university in 1872, profiling influential faculty and the Department’s role during the time of rapid AI industry growth.

Ultimately, the book is about people. It includes a letter of introduction by longtime Holstein breeder and AI industry leader Mark Comfort, along with reflections from several dairy industry figures whom McClure crossed paths with, including Tim Abbott, Mike Weimer and David Thorbahn as well as his pastor of 41 years, Larry Holland.

“I firmly believe people are the driving force behind all we accomplish,” said McClure, reflecting on his interview with Richard Chichester for Chapter 6. “People manage farms. People lead organizations. People educate students. People develop technology. It costs nothing to dream, but everything not to dream. So, it’s a book about the people who made things happen.”

Preserving colorful stories and personalities from dairy’s golden era, McClure recounts conversations with industry legends George Miller, Ronald Hope, Nelson Gardner, Horace Backus, and others, who helped shape modern Holstein breeding.

In the book he recalls a late-night gathering in California during the early 1980s, where McClure found himself sitting with Miller, Hope and Gardner, along with Doug Maddox, and Wally Lindskoog, whose bloodlines and breeding decisions were shaping the modern Holstein. The conversation turned to Elevation and the enormous demand for his genetics. One breeder remarked that he didn’t think he had cows good enough to breed to Elevation.

“George leaned over and said, ‘Heck, all you have to have is a cow in heat to use Elevation,’” McClure related, capturing Miller’s personality and the growing realization that Elevation was changing the Holstein breed forever.

McClure’s personal story includes raising a family at Windswept Holsteins Farm, the operation featured on the book’s cover. At one point in his career, he said: “I chose to leave what could have been a large corporate role with Select Sires because I wanted to remain close to home.”

Today, he worries about the loss of small and mid-sized dairies and the increasing concentration of genetics and milk production into fewer hands. He is saddened to see the country barns across Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York that now sit empty.

However, the book remains hopeful and inspired by dairy farming’s legacy and future. Faith and family are interwoven with the stories of the people who built this legacy, and the values that sustained them through change and hardship.

“Life’s got a lot of crooked turns in it that you don’t expect,” he reflected. “I don’t know how people can handle them without faith.”

With that in mind, McClure included in the final pages the March 29, 2024 Farmshine cover editorial by Dieter Krieg, titled “Creating wonders is God’s full-time activity.” Krieg’s reflection, he felt, captured this faith and perseverance.

Described on the back cover as “a thoughtful, well-researched account of an industry that continues to feed and connect the world,” the book highlights dairy’s cultural and economic impact from Virginia’s green pastures to the advanced dairy systems in North America and Europe today.

For anyone interested in how today’s dairy industry came to be, History of Dairy Farming in Virginia and Beyond offers the combination of a personal memoir with a sweeping chronicle of dairy’s transformation across generations that brings to life the people who dreamed, worked, lived, and inspired it.

McClure will have a booth to promote the book at the Virginia Dairy Expo, to be held at Shenandoah Produce Auction, 2839 Lumber Mill Road, Dayton, on June 12th and hosted by the Virginia State Dairymen’s Association in Dayton. The book is also available on Amazon by typing in the title to order and receive in three days. Or contact him at wvmcclurew@gmail.com or 540-798-9828.